Missing family confirmed dead in landslide

Friends and family react after being told Richard Préfontaine had been found, with no word of his condition, Tuesday evening May 11, 2010 in St. Jude.Peter McCabe
/ The Gazette

Family and friends of the Préfontaine family of St. Jude Quebec, examine the scene of a large sinkhole on on Tuesday May 11, 2010, that has sucked the Préfontaine family and home into a giant crater Monday night.(THE GAZETTE/Peter McCabe)
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The Making of a Landslide..
/ The Gazette

A damaged house and cars at the edge of a crater measuring about 1 kilometer by 500 meters that swallowed at least one house in St Jude north east of Tuesday May 11, 2010. At least four people are missing.Phil Carpenter
/ THE GAZETTE

A crater measuring about 1 kilometer by 500 meters that swallowed at least one house in St Jude north east of Montreal, Monday May 11, 2010. At least four people are missing.(THE GAZETTE/ Phil Carpenter)
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A crater measuring about 1 kilometer by 500 meters that swallowed at least one house in St Jude north east of Montreal, Monday May 11, 2010. At least four people are missing.(THE GAZETTE/ Phil Carpenter)
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A car sticks out of a crater measuring about 1 kilometer by 500 meters that swallowed at least one house in St Jude north east of Montreal, Monday May 11, 2010. At least four people are missing.(THE GAZETTE/ Phil Carpenter)
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Rescue workers loo for survivors at a crater measuring about 1 kilometer by 500 meters that swallowed at least one house in St Jude north east of Montreal, Monday May 11, 2010. At least four people are missing.(THE GAZETTE/ Phil Carpenter)
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Photo of house on Rang Salvail in St. Jude, Que. that slipped into a hole created by a landslide Monday night. A family of four was missing Tuesday.Google Maps
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A car sticks out of a crater measuring about 1 kilometer by 500 meters that swallowed at least one house in St Jude north east of Montreal, Monday May 11, 2010. At least four people are missing.(THE GAZETTE/ Phil Carpenter)
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A crater measuring about 1 kilometer by 500 meters that swallowed at least one house in St Jude north east of Montreal, Monday May 11, 2010. At least four people are missing.(THE GAZETTE/ Phil Carpenter)
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A crater measuring about 1 kilometer by 500 meters that swallowed at least one house in St Jude north east of Montreal, Monday May 11, 2010. At least four people are missing.(THE GAZETTE/ Phil Carpenter)
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Map of area where a home fell into a sinkhole. A family of four is missing.Google Maps
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SAINT-JUDE, Que. – All four members of a family missing and believed to have been swallowed up when their home was hit by a massive mudslide were confirmed dead early Tuesday night.

The discovery of the bodies of Richard Préfontaine, his wife Lyne, and their daughters Amélie, 11, and Anais, 9, brought an end to a frantic 24-hour rescue mission that saw dozens of police officers, paramedics, firefighters and community members rally together in the tiny town of St. Jude, just east of Montreal.

“The first two (bodies) have been extricated from the rubble and they have been confirmed dead. Victims number three and four are currently being extricated,” said Michel Doré, the associate deputy minister of Quebec’s civil security department just after 8:30 p.m. “We found them in the television room in the basement…where we were told that they would be.”

Based on officials’ first examination, he added, it appeared the family was caught completely off guard by the mudslide. At least two were found still seated on the couch in front of the television.

Earlier in the day, crews demolished the house on top to allow them "to access a part of the basement that we couldn't see otherwise," said Doré. They pumped water, sand and thick mud from the basement as part of their rescue effort. The home was still upright, he added, although it fallen into the ground where it once perched.

Rescue teams found the body of Richard Préfontaine shortly after 6 p.m., and quickly discovered the other three victims nearby.

The landslide occured at about 7:30 p.m. Monday evening, engulfing a red pick-up truck driving along the Rang Salvail. Yves de Bellefeuille, the Mayor of St. Jude, told reporters at the scene Tuesday that it took the driver, who suffered a concussion, over an hour to climb and crawl over the heaved piles of earth to the door of a nearby farmhouse.

Herman Gagnon, who lived on the neighbouring hill to the Préfontaines, said he heard a loud groan Monday night and thought there had been an earthquake.

The noise came from his basement, so he went to check his pipes. They were fine. Gagnon soon got on the phone with a neighbour, his vehicle car and drove from his home toward the town of St. Jude along the sparsely populated Rang Salvail, where next door neighbours often can’t see each other’s houses.

Between Gagnon’s home and the Préfontaine’s, there is normally a narrow creek and a bridge. But as he descended the hill and started to crest the other side, he said he was stopped in his tracks.

In front of him lay “a different kind of blackness,” Gagnon recounted Tuesday. He stopped at the edge of a giant precipice and found himself staring into the abyss.

Another resident lingering at the roadside barriers, who declined to give his name, said sink holes and landslides are common in this area of southern Quebec, located 77 kilometres northeast of Montreal.

He blamed “glaze bleu” – a very soft type of blue clay – that lines the banks of the Yamaska River.

Doré said it appears the top two floors of the Préfontaine house, in a pastoral setting on a hill overlooking a creek, dropped downwards, while the blue clay pressed upwards.

Around noon Tuesday, police moved the security perimeter closer to the scene of sunken home. SQ spokesman Ronald McInnis said the crater is 500 metres wide by 100 metres wide and uniformly 30 metres deep.

At a news conference held just after 5 p.m. Tuesday, firefighters were still calling the operation a rescue mission. An ambulance and a stretcher were waiting in anticipation of possible survivors. Hope increased after one of the family's dogs was found alive by rescuers at the scene Tuesday morning.

Workers with the province’s electrical services showed up around 6 p.m. Tuesday night and began moving power poles about 500 metres further away from the gaping hole, which was still extremely unstable around its edges.

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